Spending money for high school student on college campus for a month

[aprilgail]

My daughter is looking to go to the NYU pre-college program next summer, 6 weeks dorming there. OP I would do more than 25 a week though for spending money, just getting a starbucks and a slice of pizza would be 10.00. Open a student checking account for her, my daughter has had one for a couple years and with the checking account she has her own Visa/ATM card- it has a 400 per day limit on it. You could add more money to her checking account if she runs low and she can access it with her card.

 

[okeydokey]

I know that my daughter's program (Duke TiP) was very well scheduled, There was not a lot of time for doing things outside the program and they were not allowed to leave campus and go to the movies or shopping, except for their Fourth year, and that was limited. There were some excursions with the group though. She did not need 100 a week. She took maybe 175 for three weeks and came with money left over.

 

[georgina]

Interesting responses. No way would any of my kids have bought a coffee every day at that age. None of them spent much money in a month during their college years either. I guess a lot depends on the local area and the student's social group.

 

[NHdisneylover]

I am not sure how much money to suggest. My own kid, who dislikes most fast food (ie, my DD, DS loves the stuff) wouldn't be likely to go through more than $50 a week and probably quite a bit less.

I do agree with the suggestion above to take your DD into the bank and open up a student checking account with ATM card for her (DD18 got hers free; I think most banks offer that--she is through Wells Fargo, which was also on every campus she toured).

I think having her own account and getting used to managing money in it NOW will be a great benefit to your DD when she goes off to college in a couple of years.

 

[piperdown]

DD went on an out of state band trip last year and I was worried about her carrying cash, so I made her an authorized user on one of my credit cards that had a small limit. She's the only one that uses that card, so I can easily keep track of her spending. She's a responsible kid and we set clear spending rules when she was given this privilege. She knows she will quickly lose this privilege if she breaks the rules.

 

[mr.bungle]

I think a case of natural light is around $15. So probably send like $100 so she has plenty of beer money. Haha

 

[gardenergirl]

OP here- Wow! I guess my budget just got bigger (but no beer money!!). It's the Governor's Scholars Program so I think it is very scheduled. It appears they keep them busy well into the evening, so I'm hoping that she will not need to venture out very often. There is a parent visit day about 2 weeks in, so I will just send her with maybe around $75-100 and then see how much she has left on the parent day and go from there. She's never been away for more than a couple of days so we are really nervous about the whole thing. The kids aren't allowed to carry their cell phones, so I'm almost more concerned about that going missing than any cash-we just upgraded our phones so now she has a fancy one that she bought with her own money. It has the fingerprint password thing so maybe even if it was stolen they couldn't use it or rack up serious charges.

Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences and info, it really has helped us reason through this!

 

[The Mystery Machine]

My advice is to get her a debit card and problem is solved.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

OP here- Wow! I guess my budget just got bigger (but no beer money!!). It's the Governor's Scholars Program so I think it is very scheduled. It appears they keep them busy well into the evening, so I'm hoping that she will not need to venture out very often. There is a parent visit day about 2 weeks in, so I will just send her with maybe around $75-100 and then see how much she has left on the parent day and go from there. She's never been away for more than a couple of days so we are really nervous about the whole thing. The kids aren't allowed to carry their cell phones, so I'm almost more concerned about that going missing than any cash-we just upgraded our phones so now she has a fancy one that she bought with her own money. It has the fingerprint password thing so maybe even if it was stolen they couldn't use it or rack up serious charges.

Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences and info, it really has helped us reason through this!

She will be FINE! My dd did the scholars programs in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. Now she is going to the same college as a HS grad.

The experience is invaluable.